Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/370

346 from 1403 to 1425, further divided the power among eight; but this very subdivision tended to a return to the original supremacy of one; for, while all bore the similar title of Vang = "little king," or "sub-king," it became gradually necessary that among so many one should take the lead, and for this one the title of Garma or patriarch was coined ere long.

The Tibetians and Mongolians receiving thus late the doctrines of Shâkjamuni received a version of it very different from his original teaching. The meditations and mystifications of his followers had invested him with ever new prerogatives, and step by step he had come to be considered no longer in the light of an extraordinary teacher, or even a heaven-sent founder of religion, but as himself the essence of truth and the object of supreme adoration. Out of this theory again ramified developments so complicated as almost to defy condensation. Thus Addi-Buddha, as he was now called, it was taught was possessed of five kinds of gnâna or knowledge; and by five operations of his dhjâna or contemplative power he was supposed to have produced five Dhjâni-Buddhas, each of which received a special name, and in process of time became personified and deified too, and each by virtue of an emanation of the supreme power indwelling him had brought forth a Dhjâni-Bodhisattva. The fourth of these, distinguished as Dhjâni-Bodhisattva-Padmapâni, was the Creator, not only of the universe, but also of Brahma and other gods whom Shâkjamuni or his earlier followers had acknowledged as more or less supreme. And as if this strange theogony was not perplexing enough, there had come to be added to the cycle of objects of worship a multitude of other deifications too numerous even to name here in detail.

Among all these, Dhjâni-Bodhisattva-Padmapâni is reckoned the chief god by the Mongolians. The principal tribute of worship paid him is the endless repetition of the ejaculation, "Om Manipadmi hum" = "Hail Manipadmi O!" Every one has heard of the prayer-machine, the revolutions of whose wheel set going by the worshipper count as so many exclamations to his account. "The instrument is called Tchu-Kor (turning prayer)," writes Abbé Huc. "You see a number of them in every brook" (in the neighbourhood of a Lamaseri) "turned by the current The Tartars suspend them also over the fireplace to send up prayer for the peace and prosperity of the household;" he mentions also many most curious incidents in connexion with this practice. Another similar institution is printing the formulary an immense number of times on numbers of sheets of paper, and fixing them in a barrel similarly turned by running water. Baron Schilling de Kanstadt has given us (in